


The Way Things Used To Be

by protectmikasamuels2017



Series: Everything Has Changed [2]
Category: House of Anubis
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Mentioned Kidnapping, everyone but joy is just mentioned really, joy's been through a lot, struggling joy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 11:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30088410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectmikasamuels2017/pseuds/protectmikasamuels2017
Summary: Nothing was the same anymore.Everything that she had clung too and dreamt of returning to was gone or changed.Everything was different and she was struggling not to drown in the unfamiliar.
Relationships: Joy Mercer & Patricia Williamson, Joy Mercer/Fabian Rutter, Nina Martin/Fabian Rutter
Series: Everything Has Changed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213892
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	The Way Things Used To Be

**Author's Note:**

> When I wrote 'Ally or Threat?' I fully intended for it to be just a oneshot and leave it at that. But last week I was thinking about Jerome in Sibuna and was wondering just what everyone must have thought about the six of them suddenly hanging out and out of the other four (Joy, Mara, Mick and Eddie) Joy is clearly the best pov for it.
> 
> I'm not sure if I'll continue this as a series right now but I'm leaving the option open. I'm very busy with online classes for college and have so many assignments because of Covid so my time for writing for fun is severly limited. But if inspiration strikes then I'll happily add to this.

If anyone had told Joy a year ago, hell, even just before school had started up again after last summer that Fabian would be hanging out, out of what seemed to be pure free will, with Jerome and Alfie, then she would have called them mad. If they had then told her that the three of them plus Amber and Patricia would all be hanging out as a little group of their own, going off together and sharing secrets, then she would have known for definite that she was dreaming. Or had gone deaf.

Yet that was what was happening right now before her eyes. She can see them all through a tiny crack in the door of Amber’s and hers room. The six of them hanging out together. Their voices are too low for her to make out what they’re saying, but she had a perfect view of her Fabes and the American, sitting side by side on the bed, practically cuddling and she could barely stamp down on the jealousy and hurt wanting to erupt out of her.

Seriously though, when had these close friendships developed? How did so much change in such a short amount of time?

How the hell were they all such good friends now?

Fabian had never really gotten on with any of his new friends before she had been forced to leave Amun last year. Only Patricia. Amber, he tolerated, but neither had ever sought out the other’s company. Fabes preferred interests were his guitar and his books while Amber's interests leaned towards make-up and fashion. Their only common link back then was that Mick was Fabes best friend and Amber’s boyfriend. 

Alfie and Jerome on the other hand, the duo and Fabian were like oil and water to one another. Neither liked the other. The insufferable buffoons had considered Fabian to be nothing more but a nosy interference to their pranks and schemes and Fabian had considered them to be near Neanderthals. And even then Fabes had considered that comparison to be an insult to the Neanderthals. Jerome and Fabian’s relationship especially was at times the closest anyone in Anubis House held to outright hate.

Amber and Patricia on the other hand were friends, but never close. Trixie had a much closer bond with Jerome and Alfie then she did with the blonde. Of course, they’d have sleepovers and share secrets and clothes and all that, but that was a normal teenage friendship. It had been nothing like they appeared to have now.

How had so much changed in such little time?

How did so much of the things and people that she used to know like the back of her hand become unrecognisable?

Why had they taken her?

Nearly six months she had spent under literal imprisonment last year. Six months held captive in an apartment on the other side of England, where she had never been in her life before then. Six months with no phone, no laptop, barely any tv or radio. Six months of not being allowed to step outside and hardly able to open a window to get fresh air. Six months of being closely watched, unable to contact her friends, or get any form of help. Of being told that she was some ‘Chosen One’.

She had still remembered the day when they had taken her from school. Made her get into that car and as soon as she did the doors locked and she was driven away from everyone and everything she loved. The driver had ignored her questions and her begging to open the door and let her out. The moment those doors locked, her old life was gone forever in a way she never could have imagined.

She hadn’t realised that back then. During those hell on earth months all she could think about was escaping and getting to Patricia. Her best friend, her surrogate sister. Trixie would help hide her, she knew that she would. Back then she had been too scared to even go to her mum, convinced that she had been involved in the act. After all if her dad and her teachers were who was to say her mum wouldn’t be? But she knew that Patricia would help her. Patricia would help hide her until they could figure out a plan.

Every attempt she had made to escape back then had been foiled though. In the end she had nearly been willing to kill her father; hit him over the head, spike his food with an overdose, smother him in his sleep. She had just been so desperate to get away, and she had been panicking more and more as the chosen day drew nearer. In the end she had nearly killed herself by climbing out the window and down the walls and how she didn’t break her neck or her back in the process was still a mystery to her, but even that would have been preferable to that Ceremony.

The whole experience had been traumatising from start to finish and she was certain that she’ll be billing Victor and the school for the therapy she would probably have to undergo in the future as a result of it.

But it had ended happily enough (for her, her dad was denied his chance at eternal life, not that she cared, they had no relationship but DNA anymore). And she had nearly cried with relief when she had been told that she could go back to Amun when the next term started. That she could go home. Only six more weeks of waiting, at her mother’s thank God, who it had turned out had had no idea about what had actually been going on. She had been under the assumption that Joy had been at Amun for the whole school year. But finally there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel. She was going home, back to her family, back to those who she knew cared about her. 

Of course, Amun did have it’s major drawbacks, (Victor, Mr Sweet, Mrs Andrews - all willing participants in what she had gone through) but she could deal with that if it meant that she’ll be back home. Back in her old room, back with Patricia, back with Fabes. And maybe, just maybe, her and him could have something together. 

But as Spencer Hastings once summed up perfectly: ‘You know what they say about hope: it breeds eternal misery.’

She hadn’t expected to have been replaced.

She had known there was a new girl. Nina. She had met her in person in the chaos of that night and in the brief video call a few weeks before that, the girl who had turned out to be the actual Chosen One. But she hadn’t paid much attention to her at either time, her mind had been occupied on more important things. She had known that they’d be living in the same house together once school started again but she had seemed unimportant at the time. A non-issue.

How wrong she was.

Nina had taken her old room. Her beautiful room that she had once shared with Patricia while she was now sharing a triple.

She had taken nearly all of her old seats in class. Every time when she had gone into a class once term had started up, expecting her old seat to be empty, there she was sitting in it and she was left fumbling trying to find a new seat.

Her old friendships were now gone more or less. Trix was still her best friend, she’d still give her life for her’s if she had too. But nowadays Patricia, Fabian, Amber, they were all more likely to be found hanging out with Nina and the brainless duo. Or Patricia would be spending more and more time with Eddie as the two were practically dating in all but name if you asked her. Her old friends, especially Patricia, had less and less time to spend with her these days and she was left fumbling to find people and hobbies to fill her time with instead.

Nina Martin had even taken her place in Fabes affections.

She had been about to work up the courage to ask Fabian on a date when she was taken. She had liked him for the last two years at the time, and in the last few months before it had all happened, she had felt almost a change in his behaviour towards her. He had been developing feelings for her too, she knew he had.

But just like everything else that had been hers she had returned to find it nothing but a small pile of smoldering embers that she had refused to let die and Nina seemed to have usurped her place in Fabes affections.

It wasn’t fair. Everything that had been hers, everything that she had thought about returning to that had gotten her through those dark months last year, had been taken from her by the American girl who had arrived out of nowhere and within months, maybe just weeks, taken what had taken her years to grow. She was losing everything precious to her, everything worth holding onto, no matter how much she tried and she was drowning as a result.

It’s why she had worked so hard on the Jackal. Finally something of her own, maybe something she could work on restoring herself with. Best thing of all, Nina had no interest in it. And so the Jackal became her crutch as she worked on trying to fix herself with it.

But a school website was a poor comparison when it seemed that everywhere she looked these days she was hit with signs of all that she had lost. Mara and Eddie were good friends and they didn’t know anything about what had happened last year. The amount of pure joy she had over that nearly made her cry at times. With them she could just be a regular teenager and forget all that had happened that still made her wake up gasping in fear.

Patricia never bothered to ask about her nightmares these days. Patricia was hardly ever around at night anymore. She didn’t know where she went, she had tried waiting up at night to catch her when she sneaked out but despite her best efforts she had always drifted to sleep and when she woke up in the morning Patricia was groaning and rolling over in bed to try and get some more sleep.

Did her sneaking off have anything to do with these new friendships?

She didn’t know and it hurt to think that her best friend didn’t trust her enough to tell her. Had their friendship which used to be so strong that they had virtually no secrets between them, weakened to the point that her supposed best friend couldn’t tell her what she was doing at night? It wasn’t like she’d rat her out to Victor!

Did Patricia not trust her anymore?

Why?

The sound of bodies moving snapped her back to reality and she looked up in time to see the other’s moving towards the door. It they caught her eavesdropping then she knew that it wouldn’t end well. 

Acting quickly she turned and darted towards the open bathroom, barely managing to get it closed when the new gang were all leaving Nina and Amber’s room.

Disappointed she slumped in front of the mirror and thought about all of what she just saw.

Nothing made sense these days.

Amber and Alfie had some weird coupley thing almost going on. Fabian and Jerome were willingly spending time together. Patricia seems to have replaced her with an American girl, who probably knew nothing about her the way Joy did.

The jealousy was threatening to bubble up and spew hateful lava out over everything in her path. Why did Nina get everything that used to be hers? Why was she left with nothing?

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

Someone had to pay.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok when I was younger and had watched House of Anubis season 2 for the first time I didn't like Joy. I didn't hate her, but I didn't like her either due to her actions, she didn't seem to a nice person either.
> 
> Now that I'm older though I have more sympathy for her. She had spent months held against her will unable to contact her friends and then she comes back to find out that Nina seemingly has taken a lot from her, if not everything. She's struggling a lot and it's not addressed. She's also living in the same house with one of her main kidnappers and we don't see how she feels about that. What she did wasn't right, but I understand more now just why she did what she did.
> 
> I just wish now that we got more opportunities to develop the characters and focus on the truamas they've been through.


End file.
